Europe’s Plans for High-Tech Projects OKd
Eighteen West European countries today approved 10 high-technology projects in the race to match U.S. and Japanese competition, but who will pay for the ambitious Eureka program remains in question.
The 10 pilot projects, ranging from the development of sophisticated lasers to a diagnostic kit for sexual diseases, were approved at a two-day congress of foreign and research ministers.
They were the first concrete plans to emerge from French President Francois Mitterrand’s proposal last spring that Europe should offer its industry alternatives to participating in the U.S. “Star Wars” space weapons research program.
While the representatives of the 18 countries and the Common Market vowed to work together on high technology, there were no announcements of new funds to back Eureka.
A final statement said only that the funds should come from private and government sources. So far, only France and West Germany have earmarked specific funds for Eureka.
Eureka has become a project to “close the technological gap with the United States and Japan by coordinating European research and development,” said West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who hosted the Hanover conference.
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